Mountains of Hatred   

“Why is [the mountain where the Torah was given] called Har Sinai? Because it’s the mountain where sinah descended upon the Nations of the World.” (Shabbos 89a)

Har Sinai is the world’s most important mountain, host to history’s most important event. We would expect the name of the mountain to reflect something inspiring, connected to Torah or the marriage between the Creator of the world and His people. Why is Har Sinai’s name focused on the negative? Why is it defined by its impact on those left behind?

Spat on in Piaseczna

A few days before Pesach I found myself in a room embellished with hideous Polish decor filled with seminary students feasting on schnitzel. We were at the DeSilva Hotel in Piaseczna, one hour south of Warsaw. After a heavy day that included an intense visit to the Majdanek concentration camp, my talmidos had questions. I decided to talk about anti-Semitism.

I noted that one of the extraordinary phenomena of our exile is that anti-Semitism is both a predictable constant and consistently absurd. Furthermore, it seems to follow the travels of the Jewish people. Before World War II, anti-Semitism was everywhere in Eastern Europe. Today it’s overwhelmingly found where you find Jews: in the United States, Western Europe, and Israel. Ironically, Israel, a country that is overwhelmingly Jewish and blessed with a strong army, is the only place where today Jews are murdered in great numbers. Poland, which is basically Judenrein, is one of the safest places to walk around in a kippah.